First of all we had a group time where teachers read the story “The Jolly Pocket Postman” and talked about sending and receiving letters. This prompted a discussion on postcards we had received at the centre. The teachers went and found some of the postcards children had sent us while on holiday and referred to a world globe to show where they had been sent from. This resulted in further discussion on what forms of transport would have been used to get the postcards from where they were sent to Acre Woods at North Sydney.
As the children seemed quite interested in this topic, teachers set up a “Post Office” in the dramatic play area. There was an area to write letters, envelopes, stamps and a post box. The children were very busy in this area, “writing” lots of letters to their friends and posting them. Teachers would collect the letters and deliver them to the children.
We then decided to extend this experience and send some letters to our preschool friends at another Acre Woods Centre. Teachers assisted the children in this process. The children drew a picture of something they liked and then dictated a letter to the teacher about their drawing. The topics of their drawings were very varied.
We then had to send our letters. To do this, we had to take a short excursion to a post box. Before we left, we had a discussion on the envelopes we had to put our letters in. We looked at the address on the front of the envelope which told the postman where to deliver the letter to, and then we looked at the address on the back of the envelope and discussed how this helped the postman deliver the letter back to us if he couldn’t find the place we sent the letter to. We also looked at where the stamp needed to go on the envelope and each child then placed their stamp on their own envelope. They then put their letter in the envelope and sealed it.
Before we left for our excursion we discussed using our listening ears while we were out walking, how we had to hold hands at all times and what to do when we came to a road that we had to cross. We also had to put our winter coats on because it was a little cold on the day we went for our walk.
We then excitedly set off to the post box. Joshua was very good at warning us when a road crossing was coming up and reminding us that we needed to stop. We would then all look left and right and make sure it was safe before crossing. Grace and Siena showed us where they live, and Samuel showed us the ice cream shop. Joshua saw the red star where his dad works. This created a lot of discussion on where some of the other parents worked.
When we made it to the post box, we realised that most of us couldn’t reach to put the letters in, so Kylie had to help us by lifting us up. Once we all put our letters in, we talked about what would happen to them now. Someone thought a truck would come and take them, and then Avalon saw a white truck pull up, and asked if that was the right truck. Kylie informed them that it had to be a red truck. We weren’t sure where they would go after the truck collected them, so we decided we would have to look into this further.
On the walk back to the centre, we bumped into Grace’s dad, who was doing some grocery shopping, and Grace and Siena showed us where they go to get a “coffee”. On our arrival back at Acre Woods, we noticed the post man had delivered some mail, so we collected this to deliver to the office.
On our return, we sat down and drew some pictures of our experience. Skylir drew the big buildings that we saw, and Hunter drew himself with Colette and Avalon, the people he had to hold hands with. We also shared some information with the other children in the room, who decided they would like to do the same thing. We have planned another walk for next week and we look forward to receiving some letters back from our friends at Acre Woods Eastwood!
How this learning experience links to EYLF outcomes:
4 a. Children develop dispositions for learning such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination and reflexivity.
4 b. Children develop a range of skills and processes such as problem solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesizing, researching and investigating.
5 b. Children engage with a range of texts and gain meaning from these texts.
5 d. Children begin to understand how symbols and pattern systems work.
